O.J. Simpson Gets Nevada Parole Hearing

O.J. Simpson goes before a Nevada parole panel Thursday to plead for leniency in his 2008 kidnapping and robbery case, but even a favorable decision won’t spring the former football star from prison. Simpson was sentenced to consecutive terms on several charges. But some of his sentences were ordered to run concurrently – two counts each of kidnapping and robbery and one count of burglary. The parole panel will consider those concurrent sentences on Thursday, David Smith, a hearing examiner with the Board of Parole Commissioners, said late Wednesday. In the event the Nevada Parole Board rules in his favor, he would then begin sentences attached to other charges. “It doesn’t open the cell door,” H. Leon Simon, the prosecutor handling Simpson’s appeal, said Wednesday. “He’d just start serving the consecutive sentences.” Simpson’s best chance for freedom lies with a pending decision by a Las Vegas judge on whether to grant him a new trial based on claims that his trial lawyer botched his defense and had a conflict of interest in the case. Clark County District Judge Linda Marie Bell held a weeklong hearing in May on the issue that featured testimony from the 66-year-old former NFL star, who was acquitted of murder in the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife and her friend.